


Angels and Angles

by wilderwisdom



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Short One Shot, girlfriend wearing your t shirt, smooches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 15:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8495044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilderwisdom/pseuds/wilderwisdom
Summary: Did anyone else read Summer Knight and have the strongest conviction that Meryl and Lily are girlfriends? Because I did. Anyway, I heard the song "Of Angels and Angles" by The Decemberists and this scene just popped into my head and wouldn't leave.





	

_There are angels_   
_in your angles,_   
_There’s a low moon_   
_caught in your tangles_

Soft music wafted across her face with the cool morning breeze, and Meryl opened her eyes to predawn light washing the ceiling above her, filtering muted through the bedsheet tacked up over the window.

_There’s a ticking_   
_at the sill,_   
_There’s a purr of a pigeon_   
_to break the still_   
_of day_

Meryl lay still in the tangle of bedclothes for a moment, allowing herself to drift awake slowly, her consciousness pooling back into the confines of her skin. The California queen mattress took up most of the floor space in the bare-walled bedroom where it lay directly on the carpet, and Meryl took up most of the bed all by herself. The softly rolling lilt of the guitar could almost have lulled her back to sleep, but the rich, pungent smell of fresh coffee won over eventually and coaxed her to work free of the twisted comforter and sheet. Each twisted fiber of carpet stood out against the sleep-sensitive soles of her feet, and the cold of the bumpy-smooth linoleum made her shiver as she padded across the hall and into the tiny kitchen.

_As on we go drowning,  
Down we go away_

The French press was half full and still steaming, and Meryl stirred in a finger or two of sweetened creamer after finding a mug amidst yesterday’s dishes and the remains of last night’s dinner. She had to duck her head at the sink to avoid disturbing the hanging plants that framed the window, and moved carefully around their fellows on the counters and windowsills, ferns and succulents and tillandsias.

_And darling,_   
_we go a-drowning_   
_Down we go away_   
_…Away_

Big hands warming around the coffee cup they engulfed, Meryl leaned against the wall and regarded the girl framed against the pale light of the overcast Chicago spring morning.  
The changeling Lily sat cross-legged, leaning against the sliding glass door frame, half in- and half outside. The watery light of the new day washed over her face and body gently bleaching color and softening lines; pools of shadow gathered in the lee of curves thrown into relief by the light.  
She swam in one of Meryl’s Big & Tall, jersey knit athletic shirts; the sleeves hung long and loose past her elbows, and the hem would have all but reached her knees, pulled taut at mid-thigh by the spread of her legs. In the hollow space between them, she cradled the bulky body of an acoustic guitar almost as big as she was. Her small, nimble fingers plucked at the strings in an undulating pattern and, eyes half-closed, she sang softly, almost to herself,

_There’s a tough word  
on your crossword_

Her voice was quiet enough to be breathy, and cracked into nothing on the lowest and highest notes.

_There’s a bedbug  
nipping a finger_

She didn’t seem aware that Meryl had come into the room, and likewise didn’t notice or didn’t mind when a bit of her grass-green hair escaped from the sloppy knot on top of her head and fell into her eyes. Those eyes might be ringed in sleepless bruises. That face might be stained with the near-imperceptible traces of dry tears. There was an air of quiet calm, though, the kind of tired peace that comes after the chaos of the storm. There was the quiet control of accepting limitations. Lily had put on a dark green lipstick just a shade off from matching her hair; the coffee was an accomplishment, the playing a grounding mantra.

_There’s a swallow,_   
_there’s a calm_   
_Here’s a hand_   
_to lay on your open palm_   
_today_

Setting down her empty mug on the bar, Meryl crossed the space between them with long, soft, careful steps, and sat down in the open doorway across from Lily, mirroring her posture, broad hands on her own big knees. She sat like that, a boulder in a brook, until the strumming slowed and faded to nothing.  
Lily wasn’t ready to look up yet, or meet gazes however briefly, but that wasn’t something Meryl would demand of her, anyway. Instead, she reached and took the neck of the instrument from Lily’s still fingers and set it down on the carpet to one side of them. Still moving with the deliberate caution used in addressing spooked animals, Meryl reached out across the gap with big, gentle hands and, cupping Lily under the hips and steadying at the elbow, lifted and nestled her into the hollow of her own lap just as Lily had held her guitar a moment before, with the same care and ease as if she were a baby bird.  
Relaxing into the embrace, Lily dropped her forehead to the scoop of bare skin at the neck of Meryl’s A-shirt and, sliding her arms around the other changeling’s thick waist, slipped her hands into the elastic of her boxers at the small of her back. Meryl buried her nose and lips in fragrant hair and they sat like that or long minutes, the big and brawny girl cradling and shielding the smaller one.

_As on we go drowning_   
_Down we go away_   
_And darling,_   
_we go a-drowning_   
_Down we go away_

The fog was too thick to burn off the city skyline, and while the cold was light and crisp without bitterness, it was as bright and as warm as it was like to get when soft green lips lifted and pressed upon the strong arm nearest them, climbed bicep and shoulder and throat, and Meryl let her own head bow lower, until it rested in the curve of Lily’s shoulder.  
The smaller changeling took Meryl’s head in her hands and lifted her face up, pushing aside coarse, straggly hair the color of cattails and reeds. Lily made a soft sound when their lips met, and, in response, Meryl tightened her embrace and rose to her feet in the same fluid motion, the smaller girl still held in her arms, and retreated to the bedroom.

_Away_

Afterwards, in the dim quiet of the nest of quilts and pillows with the steady thrum of traffic going about its business outside, Meryl stroked Lily’s eyelids with broad, blunt fingers until she fell asleep.

_There are angels_   
_in your angles_   
_There’s a low moon_   
_caught in your tangles_


End file.
